The Supreme Court on Tuesday granted interim protection from arrest to journalist Abhishek Upadhyay who wrote about theft of donations received for Ram Mandir in Ayodhya, in a road rage case against him.

The Court also issued notice on his plea seeking quashing of the case against him and sought the response of the Uttar Pradesh government.

Upadhyay had approached the Court contending that the case against him pertaining to road rage was filed to retaliate against him for his investigation reports on scams in Ram Mandir Trust and alleged corruption in Uttar Pradesh Government. The offence allegedly of using casteist abuses during road rage invokes provisions of stringent SC/ST Act.

A Bench comprising Chief Justice of India (CJI) Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi and Justice V Mohana today issued notice to the State of UP and granted interim protection from arrest to Upadhyay.

“Issue notice. Returnable on September 7. Meanwhile, no coercive action shall be taken against the petitioner in the FIR already registered or in such FIR, to our knowledge, that may be registered against him,” the Court ordered.

The Court further issued directions to supply copy of the FIR against Upadhyay.

“Similarly, let a copy of FIR registered at Indirapuram, Ghaziabad be supplied to the petitioner to enable him to avail every remedy against such FIR in accordance with law. The Superintendent of Police, Ghaziabad shall file a compliance report in this Court,” the apex court ordered.

The matter will be next heard on September 7.

Upadhyay had written about embezzlement of donations received by Ram Mandir. He had also published an investigative story about an IAS officer alleged to be very close to Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister. The story revolved around the purchase of agricultural land at Bhadohi by this officer in 20 23 for nearly ₹20 crore. In the agreements for purchase of land, the profession of this officer was allegedly mentioned as “business”.

An FIR was lodged against Upadhyay on August 18 following a complaint by a two-wheeler rider who alleged that Upadhyay drove his vehicle from behind into his vehicle. He also alleged that thereafter Upadhyay threatened and abused him. Upadhyay was booked for committing offences under Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita and under SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act.

Senior Advocate Pradeep Rai, appearing for Upadhyay submitted that the FIR was registered on “fictitious” grounds.

“He did the entire expose of Ayodhya, My Lord. Earlier also he has done so many investigations. For each and every investigation there is some FIR on some fictitious reason. I do not want any other relief other than a fair investigation,” Rai told the bench.

“What happened suppose? You hit a scooterist with your car and then you get down of your car and you give casteist abuses. Then yes, it is an offence and it has to be seen. Let us hypothetically say it can happen in various ways. If it is a completely imaginary and concocted story, then it is a different case,” CJI Kant replied.

“Nothing of this sort happened. That’s why we are asking for the CCTV footage, My Lord. For that you need to give some breathing time and space so that you can see the case properly. They should give us the copy of the FIR and CCTV footage also. See the footage and hear our arguments…If they provide these two things, I will be able to.”

Learned Senior Advocate Rai further said that Upadhyay was coming back home after dropping his minor daughter from school when the complainant on a motorbike came on the side of his car and stopped his vehicle and created ruckus. Since he had his minor daughter with him, he claims that he did not indulge in any verbal or physical confrontation with the opposite party and chose to avoid the situation.

“It is submitted there was no collision, physical confrontation or further incident between Petitioner and the said person,” Upadhyay said in his plea.

The petitioner said that the incident during alleged road rage was pre-planned. He added that the complainant was actually planted by the State machinery because he was offended by his reports and news articles.

Upon receiving information about the allegations made by the complainant, he asked his journalist friends to visit the nearby shops and establishments from the place of occurrence to find out if they have CCTV footage of the said incident. Upadhyay also learned that police teams had already visited certain shops and forced them to delete/ not give CCTV footage of the incidents from the relevant period.

It was further stated that the complainant is not the two-wheeler owner but a different person altogether.

Besides these allegations, Upadhyay claims that he never abused the complainant.